Roughly 350 of the expected 4,000 U.S. troops authorized to help contain the Ebola epidemic have been deployed to West Africa.

These troops will be building and staffing Ebola units, educating health care providers and training nurses and physicians, as the U.S. leads the international response in the fight against Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Many are worried, however, about U.S. troops contracting the deadly virus while working with Ebola patients or infected materials.

After initially sending mixed messages, the official in charge of the U.S. command center in Africa, Gen. David Rodriguez, clarified today that U.S. troops will not be in contact with Ebola patients, but they will be handling blood samples and raw materials.

Lt. Gen. William Jerry Boykin (Ret.), joined Gretchen Carlson on The Real Story this afternoon and said that anybody who is in such an environment is going to be exposed to Ebola, whether they are working directly with Ebola patients or not.

“It’s nonsense to say they will not be exposed. Of course, they will be exposed,” Boykin said, adding that the single purpose of the U.S. military is supposed to be to fight and win wars, not deliver humanitarian aid, particularly in dangerous areas.

“If you were a wife at home or a father or mother at home, wouldn’t you be very concerned about your son or daughter being in that part of the world, exposed to this? I certainly would,” Boykin said.

“We don’t need to do this to our military at this time … it’s not a military mission.”

Latest from Fox News Channel

Former Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan said Tuesday on "The Ingraham Angle" that if Republicans and Democrats in Congress closed "loopholes" in the law that allow for "catch and release" and other perceptively problematic situations, the migrant caravans would cease to exist.